New Jersey Nets

Let us hope it doesn’t come to this. Not because I care if Dallas lands Dwight Howard or not but because it would mean 11 more months of this drama. None of us need that. Howard has made it clear that he wants to be traded and where he wants to be traded. And while…

While the Lakers were talking to Orlando about a Dwight Howard trade, they have always been only willing to make a deal they really liked. Because the fallback position for them is to bring Andrew Bynum, Pau Gasol, Kobe Bryant and Steve Nash into camp and chase a ring. Then the Lakers can sign their…

After a little hiatus, here is our regular look around the NBA — links to stories worth reading and notes to check out (stuff that did not get its own post here at PBT) — done in bullet point form. Because bloggers love bullet points. • As you can see from the photo to the…

Sunday it gets real. For the past three weeks Team USA has been training and scrimmaging and playing some exhibition games, getting ready. But Sunday they tip off the Olympics against France and if they can go 8-0 they will have another gold medal. (They could lose one of the first five group-play games and…

Oh, this one is going to be fun. The New York Knicks will open their season against the Brooklyn Nets, opening up the new Barclays Center and a budding rivalry in New York, according to Newsday. It is a TNT nationally televised game on Nov. 1, according to the report. The Knicks would then return…

Rule No. 1 once you get a new job — make friends with the key employee. That’s what C.J. Watson kind of tried to do. He has left the Chicago Bulls for a new deal with the Brooklyn Nets. He’s going from backing up Derrick Rose to backing up Deron Williams. And at his introductory…

We told you Tuesday that Brooklyn was making a push to get the services of Andrei Kirilenko, who spent last season with CSKA Moscow but wants to return to the NBA. But Brooklyn is out now out of the running, tweets Adrian Wojnarowski of Yahoo Sports. Not a shock because while the Nets could have…

Welcome to The Inbounds, touching on a big idea of the day. It could be news, it could be history, it could be a tangent, it could be love. OK, it’s probably not love. Enjoy. Dallas had the worst offseason. Dallas had the best offseason. Two sides, one coin. Usually when you whiff on a…

Would Andrei Kirilenko come back to the NBA to play for the veteran minimum? It’s kind of hard to picture, but that is what the Nets are trying to convince him to do, reports Marc Stein at ESPN. And they are using Deron Williams to do the recruiting. Sources close to the process told ESPN.com…

As the NBA adjusts to its new collective-bargaining agreement, we’re beginning to see some short-term returns. Literally. With a more punitive luxury tax and free agents thinking twice about moving on to new teams (and therefore significantly smaller contracts than by remaining with their incumbent teams), we’re apparently in the era of incremental rebuilds. Example…

C.J. Watson has gone from backing up one of the best point guards in the game to backing up one of the best point guards in the game. With the Bulls the past couple seasons, Watson has inked a deal with the Nets to back up Deron Williams, according to Stephan Bondy of the New…

Basically Deron Williams has confirmed what we all already knew — it sucked to be a New Jersey Net last year. There was the 22-44 record (that’s a lot of losing). There’s being a lame duck team in the last year in New Jersey, where fans became indifferent. There were the constantly swirling trade rumors.…

Team USA was back in Barcelona, wearing 1992 Dream Team throwback jerseys, which led to another round of the Dream Team vs. 2012 team talk. But the 2012 version of Team USA having to work for an 86-80 win Sunday over Argentina in an Olympics tune-up shows why comparing the two eras is hard (and…

We really need to cover this. Because it’s hilarious. So there’s this weird thing going on in free agency. For restricted free agents, here’s the process. Qualifying offer tendered, rendering the player a restricted free agent. The player is free to negotiate an offer sheet with any team in the league, and sign it. If…

Every NFL fan knows you can’t predict what the New Orleans Saints season will be like based on their Aug. 5 Hall of Fame game performance (vs. the Cardinals). Along the same line, it’s hard to infer what will happen when the games matter by watching Team USA’s pre-Olympics tune-ups. We’re left making projections based…

Way more than fans, NBA players get that they are commodities in a business. They want to get as much as they can while they can because they know the window closes fast. Guys may be a little jealous of other players’ deals, but nobody really begrudges each other making money. So long as they…

It was known the Nets had had serious conversations with center Nazr Mohammed, but apparently things are about to take the next step. Mohammed tweeted this (via Chris Tommason of Fox Sports Florida, who says he is heading there to ink a deal) Airplane mode to Newark… ✈✈✈ The deal likely will be for near…

This really is not a game changer. It isn’t. And I’ll explain why in a minute. But Dwight Howard’s agent Don Fegan made a splash late Thursday saying Howard would test the free agent waters next summer regardless of where he is traded (or if he is traded). Here is the quote from Fegan to…

As we told you before, Team USA waxed this year’s Olympic hosts on Thursday 118-78 in a game where the star may have been Deron Williams hitting four three-pointers in the third quarter. Or Russell Westbrook‘s defense. Or Carmelo Anthony with a nice run at the end of the first quarter. Take your pick, it…

If Thursday’s game in Manchester is any indication Great Britain is going to be a lovely host for the 2012 Olympic Games. They rolled out the red carpet for Team USA and by the end of the first quarter pretty much rolled over for Team USA, which went on to rout GBR 118-78 in a…

The Wizards were more dysfunctional than a Kardashian marriage. So they have changed everything. Down to the uniforms. Look at it this way — John Wall is now the longest tenured Wizard, something owner Ted Leonsis wrote on his blog. He wrote about the top-to-bottom changeover of the roster. It needed to happen — the Wizards…

Earlier this month, it seemed like new Magic GM Rob Hennigan was trapped, and succumbing to the pressure. Word spread that the Nets were that magical word, “close” to a deal for Dwight Howard, in one of the most complicated trades maybe ever proposed, involving up to 14 players being swapped. The result was shady…

Rajon Rondo has never been lacking in self-confidence. A steady jumpshot? Yes. But not self-confidence. Rondo is in Paris, not to check out the Tour de France but to be part of the Nike World Basketball Festival. Which if you’re going to go to a world basketball festival is a good place to have to…

The Lakers and Magic sat down Tuesday and talked about what it would take to get a Dwight Howard trade done. We told you that was happening and Dave McMenamin of ESPNLosAngeles.com confirmed it. We also told you that they can talk all they want but unless Andrew Bynum agrees to commit to staying in…

Let’s run through the Nets starting five and their salaries for next season: Point guard Deron Williams, $17.2 million; shooting guard Joe Johnson $19.8 million; Gerald Wallace $9 million; Kris Humphries $12 million; Brook Lopez $13.7 million. That is $71.7 million, not counting incentives some players may hit. That is with a salary cap of…